CRAM FOR SUCCESS – QUESTION TYPE BASED READING PRACTICE TESTS
MATCHING HEADINGS
QUESTIONS
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CRAM FOR SUCCESS – QUESTION TYPE BASED READING PRACTICE TESTS
MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 1
Termite Mounds
Could the vast towers of mud constructed by insects in sub-Saharan Africa hold the key to our energyefficient building of the future?
A. To most of us, termites are destructive insects which can cause damage on a devastating scale. But
according to Dr Rupert Soar of Loughborough University’s School of Mechanical and Manufacturing
Engineering, these pests may serve a useful purpose for us after all. His multi-disciplinary team of
British and American engineers and biologists have set out to investigate the giant mounds built by
termites in Namibia, in sub-Saharan Africa, as part of the most extensive study of these structures ever
taken.
B. Termite mounds are impressive for their size alone; typically they are three metres high, and some
as tall as eight metres by found. They also reach far into the earth, where the insects ‘mine’ their
building materials, carefully selecting each grain of sand they use. The termite's nest is contained in the
central cavity of the mound, safely protected from the harsh environment outside. The mound itself is
formed of an intricate lattice of tunnels, which spilt into smaller and smaller tunnels, much like a
person’s blood vessels.
C. This complex system of tunnels draws in air from the outside, capturing wind energy to drive it
through the mound. It also serves to expel spent respiratory gases from the nest to prevent the termites
from suffocating, so ensuring them a continuous provision of fresh, breathable air. So detailed is the
design that the nest stays within three degrees of a constant temperature, despite variations on the
outside of up to 50o C, from blistering heat in the daytime to below freezing on the coldest nights. The
mound also automatically regulates moisture in the air, by means of best its underground ‘cellar’, and
evaporation from the top of the mound. Some colonies even had ‘chimneys’ at a height of 20m to
control moisture less in the hottest regions of sub-Saharan Africa.
D. Furthermore, the termites have evolved in such a way as to outsource some of their biological
functions. Part of their digestive process in camera out by a fungus, which they ‘farm’ inside the
mound. This fungus, which is found nowhere else on earth, thrives in the constant and optimum
environment of the mound. The termites feed the fungus with slightly chewed wood pulp, which the
fungus then breaks down into a digestible sugary food to provide the insects with energy, and cellulose
which they use for building. And, although the termites must generate waste, none ever leaves the
structure, indicating that there is also some kind of internal waste-recycling system.
E. Scientists are so excited by the mounds that they have labelled them a ‘super organism’ because, in
Soar’s word. “They dance on the edge of what we would perceive to cool down, or if you’re too cold
you need to thrive: that’s called homeostasis. What the termites have done is to move homeostatic
function away from their body, into the structure in which they live. ‘As more information comes to
light about the unique features of termite mounds, we may ultimately need to redefine our
understanding of what constitutes a ‘living’ organism.
F. To reveal the structure of the mounds, Soar’s team begins by filling and covering their plaster of
Paris, a chalky white paste based on the mineral gypsum, which becomes rock-solid when dry. The
researcher's hen carves the plaster of Paris into half-millimatre-thick slices, and photograph them
sequentially. Once the pictures are digitally scanned, computer technology is able to recreate complex
three-dimensional images of the mounds. These models have enabled the team to map termite
architecture at a level of detail never before attained.
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G. Soar hopes that the models will explain how termite mounds create a self-regulating living
environment which manages to respond to changing internal and external conditions without drawing
on any outside source of power. If they do, the findings could be invaluable in informing future
architectural design, and could inspire buildings that are self-sufficient, environmentally, and cheap to
run. ‘As we approach a world of climate change, we need temperatures to rise, he explains, there will
not be enough fuel to drive air conditioners around the world. It is hoped, says Soar, ‘ that the findings
will provide clues that aid the ultimate development of new kinds of human habitats, suitable for a
variety of arid, hostile environments not only on the earth but maybe one day on the moon and
beyond.’
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. methods used to investigate termite mound formation
ii. challenging our assumptions about the nature of life
iii. reconsidering the termite’s reputation
iv. principal functions of the termite mound
v. distribution of termite mounds in sub-Saharan Africa
vi. some potential benefits of understanding termite architecture
vii. the astonishing physical dimensions of the termite mound
viii. termite mounds under threat from global climate change
ix. a mutually beneficial relationship
Aslanovs_Lessons
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G
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MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 2
Soviet’s New Working Week
Historian investigates how Stalin changed the calendar to keep the Soviet people continually at work
A. “There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm”. With these words, Stalin expressed the
dynamic self-confidence of the Soviet Union’s Five Year Plan: weak and backward Russia was to turn
overnight into a powerful modern industrial country. Between 1928 and 1932, production of coal, iron
and steel increased at a fantastic rate, and new industrial cities sprang up, along with the world’s
biggest dam. Everyone’s life was affected, as collectivised farming drove millions from the land to
swell the industrial proletariat. Private enterprise disappeared in city and country, leaving the State
supreme under the dictatorship of Stalin. Unlimited enthusiasm was the mood of the day, with the
Communists believing that iron will and hard-working manpower alone would bring about a new
world.
B. Enthusiasm spread to time itself, in the desire to make the state a huge efficient machine, where not
a moment would be wasted, especially in the workplace. Lenin had already been intrigued by the ideas
of the American Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), whose time-motion studies had discovered
ways of stream-lining effort so that every worker could produce the maximum. The Bolsheviks were
also great admirers of Henry Ford’s assembly line mass production and of his Fordson tractors that
were imported by the thousands. The engineers who came with them to train their users helped spread
what became a real cult of Ford. Emulating and surpassing such capitalist models formed part of the
training of the new Soviet Man, a heroic figure whose unlimited capacity for work would benefit
everyone in the dynamic new society. All this culminated in the Plan, which has been characterized as
the triumph of the machine, where workers would become supremely efficient robot-like creatures.
C. Yet this was Communism whose goals had always included improving the lives of the proletariat.
One major step in that direction was the sudden announcement in 1927 that reduced the working day
from eight to seven hours. In January 1929, all Indus-tries were ordered to adopt the shorter day by the
end of the Plan. Workers were also to have an extra hour off on the eve of Sundays and holidays.
Typically though, the state took away more than it gave, for this was part of a scheme to increase
production by establishing a three-shift system. This meant that the factories were open day and night
and that many had to work at highly undesirable hours.
D. Hardly had that policy been announced, though, then Yuri Larin, who had been a close associate of
Lenin and architect of his radical economic policy, came up with an idea for even greater efficiency.
Workers were free and plants were closed on Sundays. Why not abolish that wasted day by instituting
a continuous workweek so that the machines could operate to their full capacity every day of the week?
When Larin presented his ides to the Congress of Soviets in May 1929, no one paid much attention.
Soon after, though, he got the ear of Stalin, who approved. Suddenly, in June, the Soviet press was
filled with articles praising the new scheme. In August, the Council of Peoples’ Commissars ordered
that the continuous workweek be brought into immediate effect, during the height of enthusiasm for
the Plan, whose goals the new schedule seemed guaranteed to forward.
E. The idea seemed simple enough but turned out to be very complicated in practice. Obviously, the
workers couldn’t be made to work seven days a week, nor should their total work hours be increased.
The solution was ingenious: a new five-day week would have the workers on the job for four days,
with the fifth day free; holidays would be reduced from ten to five, and the extra hour off on the eve of
rest days would be abolished. Staggering the rest-days between groups of workers meant that each
worker would spend the same number of hours on the job, but the factories would be working a full
360 days a year instead of 300. The 360 divided neatly into 72 five-day weeks. Workers in each
establishment (at first factories, then stores and offices) were divided into five groups, each assigned a
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colour which appeared on the new Uninterrupted Work Week calendars distributed all over the
country. Colour-coding was a valuable mnemonic device since workers might have trouble
remembering what their day off was going to be, for it would change every week. A glance at the
colour on the calendar would reveal the free day, and allow workers to plan their activities. This
system, however, did not apply to construction or seasonal occupations, which followed a six-day
week, or to factories or mines which had to close regularly for maintenance: they also had a six-day
week, whether interrupted (with the same day off for everyone) or continuous. In all cases, though,
Sunday was treated like any other day.
F. Official propaganda touted the material and cultural benefits of the new scheme. Workers would get
more rest; production and employment would increase (for more workers would be needed to keep the
factories running continuously); the standard of living would improve. Leisure time would be more
rationally employed, for cultural activities (theatre, clubs, sports) would no longer have to be crammed
into a weekend, but could flourish every day, with their facilities far less crowded. Shopping would be
easier for the same reasons. Ignorance and superstition, as represented by organized religion, would
suffer a mortal blow, since 80 per cent of the workers would be on the job on any given Sunday. The
only objection concerned the family, where normally more than one member was working: well, the
Soviets insisted, the narrow family was har less important than the vast common good and besides,
arrangements could be made for husband and wife to share a common schedule. In fact, the regime had
long wanted to weaken or sideline the two greatest potential threats to its total dominance: organised
religion and the nuclear family. Religion succumbed, but the family, as even Stalin finally had to
admit, proved much more resistant.
G. The continuous work week, hailed as a Utopia where time itself was conquered and the sluggish
Sunday abolished forever, spread like an epidemic. According to official figures, 63 per cent of
industrial workers were so employed by April 1930; in June, all industry was ordered to convert during
the next year. The fad reached its peak in October when it affected 73 per cent of workers. In fact,
many managers simply claimed that their factories had gone over to the new week, without actually
applying it. Conforming to the demands of the Plan was important; practical matters could wait. By
then, though, problems were becoming obvious. Most serious (though never officially admitted), the
workers hated it. Coordination of family schedules was virtually impossible and usually ignored, so
husbands and wives only saw each other before or after work; rest days were empty without any loved
ones to share them – even friends were likely to be on a different schedule. Confusion reigned: the new
plan was introduced haphazardly, with some factories operating five-, six- and seven-day weeks at the
same time, and the workers often not getting their rest days at all.
H. The Soviet government might have ignored all that (It didn’t depend on public approval), but the
new week was far from having the vaunted effect on production. With the complicated rotation system,
the work teams necessarily found themselves doing different kinds of work in successive weeks.
Machines, no longer consistently in the hands of people how knew how to tend them, were often
poorly maintained or even broken. Workers lost a sense of responsibility for the special tasks they had
normally performed.
I. As a result, the new week started to lose ground. Stalin’s speech of June 1931, which criticised the
“depersonalised labor” its too hasty application had brought, marked the beginning of the end. In
November, the government ordered the widespread adoption of the six-day week, which had its own
calendar, with regular breaks on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, and 30th, with Sunday usually as a working
day. By July 1935, only 26 per cent of workers still followed the continuous schedule, and the six-day
week was soon on its way out. Finally, in 1940, as part of the general reversion to more traditional
methods, both the continuous five-day week and the novel six-day week were abandoned, and Sunday
returned as the universal day of rest. A bold but typically ill-conceived experiment was at an end.
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CRAM FOR SUCCESS – QUESTION TYPE BASED READING PRACTICE TESTS
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs A-I.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. Benefits of the new scheme and its resistance
ii. Making use of the once wasted weekends
iii. Cutting work hours for better efficiency
iv. Optimism of the great future
v. Negative effects on the production itself
vi. Soviet Union’s five-year plan
vii. The abolishment of the new work-week scheme
viii. The Ford model
ix. Reaction from factory workers and their families
x. The color-coding scheme
xi. Establishing a three-shift system
xii. Foreign inspiration
Aslanovs_Lessons
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
Example: Paragraph C iii
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
6. Paragraph G
7. Paragraph H
8. Paragraph I
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MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 3
Why Risks Can Go Wrong
Human intuition is a bad guide to handling risk
A. People make terrible decisions about the future. The evidence is all around, from their investments
in the stock markets to the way they run their businesses. In fact, people are consistently bad at dealing
with uncertainty, underestimating some kinds of risk and overestimating others. Surely there must be a
better way than using intuition?
B. In the 1960s a young American research psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, became interested in
people's inability to make logical decisions. That launched him on a career to show just how
irrationally people behave in practice. When Kahneman and his colleagues first started work, the idea
of applying psychological insights to economics and business decisions was seen as rather bizarre. But
in the past decade the fields of behavioural finance and behavioural economics have blossomed, and in
2002 Kahneman shared a Nobel prize in economics for his work. Today he is in demand by business
organizations and international banking companies. But, he says, there are plenty of institutions that
still fail to understand the roots of their poor decisions. He claims that, far from being random, these
mistakes are systematic and predictable.
C. One common cause of problems in decision-making is over-optimism. Ask most people about the
future, and they will see too much blue sky ahead, even if past experience suggests otherwise. Surveys
have shown that people's forecasts of future stock market movements are far more optimistic than past
long-term returns would justify. The same goes for their hopes of ever-rising prices for their homes or
doing well in games of chance. Such optimism can be useful for managers or sportsmen, and
sometimes turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. But most of the time it results in wasted effort and
dashed hopes. Kahneman's work points to three types of over-confidence. First, people tend to
exaggerate their own skill and prowess; in polls, far fewer than half the respondents admit to having
below-average skills in, say, driving. Second, they overestimate the amount of control they have over
the future, forgetting about luck and chalking up success solely to skill. And third, in competitive
pursuits such as dealing on shares, they forget that they have to judge their skills against those of the
competition.
D. Another source of wrong decisions is related to the decisive effect of the initial meeting, particularly
in negotiations over money. This is referred to as the 'anchor effect'. Once a figure has been mentioned,
it takes a strange hold over the human mind. The asking price quoted in a house sale, for example,
tends to become accepted by all parties as the 'anchor' around which negotiations take place. Much the
same goes for salary negotiations or mergers and acquisitions. If nobody has much information to go
on, a figure can provide comfort - even though it may lead to a terrible mistake.
E. In addition, mistakes may arise due to stubbornness. No one likes to abandon a cherished belief, and
the earlier a decision has been taken, the harder it is to abandon it. Drug companies must decide early
to cancel a failing research project to avoid wasting money, but may find it difficult to admit they have
made a mistake. In the same way, analysts may have become wedded early to a single explanation that
coloured their perception. A fresh eye always helps.
F. People also tend to put a lot of emphasis on things they have seen and experienced themselves,
which may not be the best guide to decision-making. For example, somebody may buy an overvalued
share because a relative has made thousands on it, only to get his fingers burned. In finance, too much
emphasis on information close at hand helps to explain the tendency by most investors to invest only
within the country they live in. Even though they know that diversification is good for their portfolio, a
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large majority of both Americans and Europeans invest far too heavily in the shares of their home
countries. They would be much better off spreading their risks more widely.
G. More information is helpful in making any decision but, says Kahneman, people spend
proportionally too much time on small decisions and not enough on big ones. They need to adjust the
balance. During the boom years, some companies put as much effort into planning their office party as
into considering strategic mergers.
H. Finally, crying over spilled milk is not just a waste of time; it also often colours people's
perceptions of the future. Some stock market investors trade far too frequently because they are
chasing the returns on shares they wish they had bought earlier.
I. Kahneman reckons that some types of businesses are much better than others at dealing with risk.
Pharmaceutical companies, which are accustomed to many failures and a few big successes in their
drug-discovery programmes, are fairly rational about their risk-taking. But banks, he says, have a long
way to go. They may take big risks on a few huge loans, but are extremely cautious about their much
more numerous loans to small businesses, many of which may be less risky than the big ones. And the
research has implications for governments too. They face a whole range of sometimes conflicting
political pressures, which means they are even more likely to take irrational decisions.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs A-I.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. Not identifying the correct priorities
ii. A solution for the long term
iii. The difficulty of changing your mind
iv. Why looking back is unhelpful
v. Strengthening inner resources
vi. A successful approach to the study of decision-making
vii. The danger of trusting a global market
viii. Reluctance to go beyond the familiar
ix. The power of the first number
x. The need for more effective risk assessment
xi. Underestimating the difficulties ahead
Aslanovs_Lessons
Example: Paragraph A x
1. Paragraph B
Example: Paragraph C xi
2. Paragraph D
3. Paragraph E
4. Paragraph F
5. Paragraph G
6. Paragraph H
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MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 4
Children’s literature
A. I am sometimes asked why anyone who is not a teacher or a librarian or the parent of little
kids should concern herself with children's books and folklore. I know the standard answers: that
many famous writers have written for children, and that the great children's books are also
great literature; that these books and tales are an important source of archetype and symbol, and that
they can help us to understand the structure and functions of the novel.
B. All this is true. But I think we should also take children's literature seriously because it is sometimes
subversive: because its values are not always those of the conventional adult world. Of course, in a
sense much great literature is subversive, since its very existence implies that what matters is art,
imagination and truth. In what we call the real world, what usually counts is money, power and public
success.
C. The great subversive works of children's literature suggest that there are other views of human life
besides those of the shopping mall and the corporation. They mock current assumptions and express
the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form.
They appeal to the imaginative, questioning, rebellious child within all of us, renew our instinctive
energy, and act as a force for change. This is why such literature is worthy of our attention and will
endure long after more conventional tales have been forgotten.
D. An interesting question is what - besides intention - makes a particular story a 'children's book'?
With the exception of picture books for toddlers, these works are not necessarily shorter or simpler
than so-called adult fiction, and they are surely not less well written. The heroes and heroines of these
tales, it is true, are often children: but then so are the protagonists of Henry James's What Maisie
Knew and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Yet the barrier between children's books and adult
fiction remains; editors, critics and readers seem to have little trouble in assigning a given work to one
category or the other.
E. In classic children's fiction a pastoral convention is maintained. It is assumed that the world
of childhood is simpler and more natural than that of adults, and that children, though they may have
faults, are essentially good or at least capable of becoming so. The transformation of selfish, whiny,
disagreeable Mary and hysterical, demanding Colin in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden is
a paradigm. Of course, there are often unpleasant minor juvenile characters who give the protagonist a
lot of trouble and are defeated or evaded rather than reeducated. But on occasion even the angry bully
and the lying sneak can be reformed and forgiven. Richard Hughes's A High Wind in Jamaica, though
most of its characters are children, never appears on lists of recommended juvenile fiction; not so much
because of the elaborations of its diction (which is no more complex than that of, say, Treasure Island),
but because in it children are irretrievably damaged and corrupted.
F. Adults in most children's books, on the other hand, are usually stuck with their characters
and incapable of alteration or growth. If they are really unpleasant, the only thing that can rescue them
is the natural goodness of a child. Here again, Mrs. Burnett provides the classic example, in Little Lord
Fauntleroy. (Scrooge's somewhat similar change of heart in Dickens's A Christmas Carol, however, is
due mainly to regret for his past and terror of the future. This is one of the things that makes the book a
family rather than a juvenile romance; another is the helpless passivity of the principal child character,
Tiny Tim.).
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G. Of the three principal preoccupations of adult fiction - sex, money and death - the first is absent
from classic children's literature and the other two either absent or much muted. Money is a motive in
children's literature, in the sense that many stories deal with a search for treasure of some sort. These
quests, unlike real-life ones, are almost always successful, though occasionally what is found in the
end is some form of family happiness, which is declared by the author and the characters to be a
'real treasure'. Simple economic survival, however, is almost never the problem; what is sought,
rather, is a magical (sometimes literally magical) surplus of wealth. Death, which was a common
theme in nineteenth-century fiction for children, was almost banished during the first half of
the twentieth century. Since then it has begun to reappear; the breakthrough book was
E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. Today not only animals but people die, notably in the sort of books
that get awards and are recommended by librarians and psychologists for children who have lost
a relative. But even today the characters who die tend to be of another generation; the protagonist and
his or her friends survive. Though there are some interesting exceptions, even the most subversive of
contemporary children's books usually follow these conventions. They portray an ideal world of
perfectible beings, free of the necessity for survival.
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. Optimistic beliefs held by the writers of children’s literature
ii. The attitudes of certain adults towards children’s literature
iii. The attraction of children’s literature
iv. A contrast that categorises a book as children’s literature
v. A false assumption made about children’s literature
vi. The conventional view of children’s literature
vii. Some good and bad features of children’s literature
viii. Classifying a book as children’s literature
ix. The treatment of various themes in children’s literature
x. Another way of looking at children’s literature
Aslanovs_Lessons
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G
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MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 5
Climate Change and the Inuit
The threat posed by climate change in the Arctic and the problems faced by Canada's Inuit people
A. Unusual incidents are being reported across the Arctic. Inuit families going off on snowmobiles to
prepare their summer hunting camps have found themselves cut off from home by a sea of mud,
following early thaws. There are reports of igloos losing their insulating properties as the snow drips
and refreezes, of lakes draining into the sea as permafrost melts, and sea ice breaking up earlier than
usual, carrying seals beyond the reach of hunters. Climate change may still be a rather abstract idea to
most of us, but in the Arctic it is already having dramatic effects - if summertime ice continues to
shrink at its present rate, the Arctic Ocean could soon become virtually ice-free in summer. The knockon effects are likely to include more warming, cloudier skies, increased precipitation and higher sea
levels. Scientists are increasingly keen to find out what's going on because they consider the Arctic the
'canary in the mine' for global warming - a warning of what's in store for the rest of the world.
B. For the Inuit the problem is urgent. They live in precarious balance with one of the toughest
environments on earth. Climate change, whatever its causes, is a direct threat to their way of life.
Nobody knows the Arctic as well as the locals, which is why they are not content simply to stand back
and let outside experts tell them what's happening. In Canada, where the Inuit people are jealously
guarding their hard-won autonomy in the country's newest territory, Nunavut, they believe their best
hope of survival in this changing environment lies in combining their ancestral knowledge with the
best of modern science. This is a challenge in itself.
C. The Canadian Arctic is a vast, treeless polar desert that's covered with snow for most of the year.
Venture into this terrain and you get some idea of the hardships facing anyone who calls this home.
Farming is out of the question and nature offers meagre pickings. Humans first settled in the Arctic a
mere 4,500 years ago, surviving by exploiting sea mammals and fish. The environment tested them to
the limits: sometimes the colonists were successful, sometimes they failed and vanished. But around a
thousand years ago, one group emerged that was uniquely well adapted to cope with the
Arctic environment. These Thule people moved in from Alaska, bringing kayaks, sleds, dogs, pottery
and iron tools. They are the ancestors of today's Inuit people.
D. Life for the descendants of the Thule people is still harsh. Nunavut is 1.9 million square kilometres
of rock and ice, and a handful of islands around the North Pole. It's currently home to 2,500 people, all
but a handful of them indigenous Inuit. Over the past 40 years, most have abandoned their nomadic
ways and settled in the territory's 28 isolated communities, but they still rely heavily on nature to
provide food and clothing. Provisions available in local shops have to be flown into Nunavut on one of
the most costly air networks in the world, or brought by supply ship during the few ice-free weeks of
summer. It would cost a family around £7,000 a year to replace meat they obtained themselves through
hunting with imported meat. Economic opportunities are scarce, and for many people state benefits are
their only income.
E. While the Inuit may not actually starve if hunting and trapping are curtailed by climate change,
there has certainly been an impact on people's health. Obesity, heart disease and diabetes are beginning
to appear in a people for whom these have never before been problems. There has been a crisis of
identity as the traditional skills of hunting, trapping and preparing skins have begun to disappear. In
Nunavut's 'igloo and email' society, where adults who were born in igloos have children who may
never have been out on the land, there's a high incidence of depression.
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F. With so much at stake, the Inuit are determined to play a key role in teasing out the mysteries of
climate change in the Arctic. Having survived there for centuries, they believe their wealth of
traditional knowledge is vital to the task. And Western scientists are starting to draw on this wisdom,
increasingly referred to as 'Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit', or IQ. 'In the early days scientists ignored us when
they came up here to study anything. They just figured these people don't know very much so we won't
ask them,' says John Amagoalik, an Inuit leader and politician. 'But in recent years IQ has had much
more credibility and weight.' In fact it is now a requirement for anyone hoping to get permission to do
research that they consult the communities, who are helping to set the research agenda to reflect their
most important concerns. They can turn down applications from scientists they believe will work
against their interests, or research projects that will impinge too much on their daily lives and
traditional activities.
G. Some scientists doubt the value of traditional knowledge because the occupation of the Arctic
doesn't go back far enough. Others, however, point out that the first weather stations in the far north
date back just 50 years. There are still huge gaps in our environmental knowledge, and despite the
scientific onslaught, many predictions are no more than best guesses. IQ could help to bridge the gap
and resolve the tremendous uncertainty about how much of what we're seeing is natural capriciousness
and how much is the consequence of human activity.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. The reaction of the limit community to climate change
ii. Understanding of climate change remains limited
iii. Alternative sources of essential supplies
iv. Respect for limit opinion grows
v. A healthier choice of food
vi. A difficult landscape
vii. Negative effects on well-being
viii. Alarm caused by unprecedented events in the Arctic
ix. The benefits of an easier existence
Aslanovs_Lessons
Example: Paragraph A viii
1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
6. Paragraph G
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CRAM FOR SUCCESS – QUESTION TYPE BASED READING PRACTICE TESTS
MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 6
Inside the mind of the consumer
Could brain-scanning technology provide an accurate way to assess the appeal of new products and
the effectiveness of advertising?
A. MARKETING people are no longer prepared to take your word for it that you favour one product
over another. They want to scan your brain to see which one you really prefer. Using the tools of
neuroscientists, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) mapping and functional magnetic-resonance
imaging (fMRI), they are trying to learn more about the mental processes behind purchasing decisions.
The resulting fusion of neuroscience and marketing is inevitably, being called 'neuromarketing’.
B. The first person to apply brain-imaging technology in this way was Gerry Zaltman of Harvard
University, in the late 1990s. The idea remained in obscurity until 2001, when BrightHouse, a
marketing consultancy based in Atlanta, Georgia, set up a dedicated neuromarketing arm, BrightHouse
Neurostrategies Group. (BrightHouse lists Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and Home Depot among its
clients.) But the company's name may itself simply be an example of clever marketing. BrightHouse
does not scan people while showing them specific products or campaign ideas, but bases its work on
the results of more general fMRI-based research into consumer preferences and decision-making
carried out at Emory University in Atlanta.
C. Can brain scanning really be applied to marketing? The basic principle is not that different from
focus groups and other traditional forms of market research. A volunteer lies in an fMRI machine and
is shown images or video clips. In place of an interview or questionnaire, the subject's response is
evaluated by monitoring brain activity. fMRIprovides real-time images of brain activity, in which
different areas “light up” depending on the level of blood flow. This provides clues to the subject's
subconscious thought patterns. Neuroscientists know, for example, that the sense of self is associated
with an area of the brain known as the medial prefrontal cortex. A flow of blood to that area while the
subject is looking at a particular logo suggests that he or she identifies with that brand.
D. At first, it seemed that only companies in Europe were prepared to admit that they used
neuromarketing. Two carmakers, DaimlerChrysler in Germany and Ford's European arm, ran pilot
studies in 2003. But more recently, American companies have become more open about their use of
neuromarketing. Lieberman Research Worldwide, a marketing firm based in Los Angeles, is
collaborating with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to enable movie studios to markettest film trailers. More controversially, the New York Times recently reported that a political
consultancy, FKF Research, has been studying the effectiveness of campaign commercials using
neuromarketing techniques.
E. Whether all this is any more than a modern-day version of phrenology, the Victorian obsession with
linking lumps and bumps in the skull to personality traits, is unclear. There have been no large-scale
studies, so scans of a handful of subjects may not be a reliable guide to consumer behaviour in general.
Of course, focus groups and surveys are flawed too: strong personalities can steer the outcomes of
focus groups, and people do not always tell opinion pollsters the truth. And even honest people cannot
always explain their preferences.
F. That is perhaps where neuromarketing has the most potential. When asked about cola drinks, most
people claim to have a favourite brand, but cannot say why they prefer that brand’s taste. An
unpublished study of attitudes towards two well- known cola drinks. Brand A and Brand 13. carried
out last year in a college of medicine in the US found that most subjects preferred Brand B in a blind
tasting fMRI scanning showed that drinking Brand B lit up a region called the ventral putamen, which
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is one of the brain s ‘reward centres’, far more brightly than Brand A. But when told which drink was
which, most subjects said they preferred Brand A, which suggests that its stronger brand outweighs the
more pleasant taste of the other drink.
G. “People form many unconscious attitudes that are obviously beyond traditional methods that utilise
introspection,” says Steven Quartz, a neuroscientist at Caltech who is collaborating with Lieberman
Research. With over $100 billion spent each year on marketing in America alone, any firm that can
more accurately analyse how customers respond to products, brands and advertising could make a
fortune.
H. Consumer advocates are wary. Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, a lobby group, thinks existing
marketing techniques are powerful enough. “Already, marketing is deeply implicated in many serious
pathologies,” he says. “That is especially true of children, who are suffering from an epidemic of
marketing- related diseases, including obesity and type-2 diabetes. Neuromarketing is a tool to amplify
these trends.”
I. Dr Quartz counters that neuromarketing techniques could equally be used for benign purposes.
“There are ways to utilise these technologies to create more responsible advertising,” he says. Brainscanning could, for example, be used to determine when people are capable of making free choices, to
ensure that advertising falls within those bounds.
J. Another worry is that brain-scanning is an invasion of privacy and that information on the
preferences of specific individuals will be misused. But neuromarketing studies rely on small numbers
of volunteer subjects, so that seems implausible. Critics also object to the use of medical equipment for
frivolous rather than medical purposes. But as Tim Ambler, a neuromarketing researcher at the London
Business School, says: ‘A tool is a tool, and if the owner of the tool gets a decent rent for hiring it out,
then that subsidises the cost of the equipment, and everybody wins.’ Perhaps more brain-scanning will
some day explain why some people like the idea of neuromarketing, but others do not.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has ten paragraphs A-J.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. A description of the procedure
ii. An international research project
iii. An experiment to investigate consumer responses
iv. Marketing an alternative name
v. A misleading name
vi. A potentially profitable line of research
vii. Medical dangers of the technique
viii. Drawbacks to marketing tools
ix. Broadening applications
x. What is neuromarketing?
Aslanovs_Lessons
Example: Paragraph A x
1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
6. Paragraph G
SUCCESSLC
CRAM FOR SUCCESS – QUESTION TYPE BASED READING PRACTICE TESTS
MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 7
Doctoring sales
Pharmaceuticals is one of the most profitable industries in North America. But do the drugs
industry's sales and marketing strategies go too far?
A. A few months ago Kim Schaefer, sales representative of a major global pharmaceutical company,
walked into a medical center in New York to bring information and free samples of her company's
latest products. That day she was lucky - a doctor was available to see her. ‘The last rep offered me a
trip to Florida. What do you have?' the physician asked. He was only half joking.
B. What was on offer that day was a pair of tickets for a New York musical. But on any given day,
what Schaefer can offer is typical for today’s drugs rep - a car trunk full of promotional gifts and
gadgets, a budget that could buy lunches and dinners for a small country, hundreds of free drug
samples and the freedom to give a physician $200 to prescribe her new product to the next six patients
who fit the drug's profile. And she also has a few $ 1,000 honoraria to offer in exchange for doctors'
attendance at her company's next educational lecture.
C. Selling pharmaceuticals is a daily exercise in ethical judgement. Salespeople like Schaefer walk the
line between the common practice of buying a prospect’s time with a free meal, and bribing doctors to
prescribe their drugs. They work in an industry highly criticized for its sales and marketing practices,
but find themselves in the middle of the age-old chlcken-or-egg question - businesses won’t use
strategies that don't work, so are doctors to blame for the escalating extravagance of
pharmaceutical marketing? Or is It the industry’s responsibility to decide the boundaries?
D. The explosion in the sheer number of salespeople in the field - and the amount of funding used to
promote their causes - forces close examination of the pressures, Influences and relationships between
drug reps and doctors. Salespeople provide much-needed information and education to physicians. In
many cases the glossy brochures, article reprints and prescriptions they deliver are primary sources of
drug education for healthcare givers. With the huge investment the industry has placed in face-to-face
selling, salespeople have essentially become specialists In one drug or group of drugs - a tremendous
advantage In getting the attention of busy doctors in need of quick information.
E. But the sales push rarely stops in the office. The flashy brochures and pamphlets left by the sales
reps are often followed up with meals at expensive restaurants, meetings in warm and sunny places,
and an inundation of promotional gadgets. Rarely do patients watch a doctor write with a pen that Isn’t
emblazoned with a drug’s name, or see a nurse use a tablet not bearing a pharmaceutical company’s
logo. Millions of dollars are spent by pharmaceutical companies on promotional products like coffee
mugs, shirts, umbrellas, and golf balls. Money well spent? It’s hard to tell. ‘I’ve been the recipient
of golf balls from one company and I use them, but it doesn’t make me prescribe their medicine,’ says
one doctor. 'I tend to think I'm not influenced by what they give me.’
F. Free samples of new and expensive drugs might be the single most effective way of getting doctors
and patients to become loyal to a product. Salespeople hand out hundreds of dollars’ worth of samples
each week - $7.2 billion worth of them In one year. Though few comprehensive studies have been
conducted, one by the University of Washington Investigated how drug sample availability affected
what physicians prescribe. A total of 131 doctors self-reported their prescribing patterns the conclusion was that the availability of samples led them to dispense and prescribe drugs that
differed from their preferred drug choice.
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G. The bottom line Is that pharmaceutical companies as a whole Invest more In marketing than they do
in research and development. And patients are the ones who pay - in the form of sky-rocketing
prescription prices - for every pen that’s handed out, every free theatre ticket, and every steak dinner
eaten. In the end the fact remains that pharmaceutical companies have every right to make a profit and
will continue to find new ways to increase sales. But as the medical world continues to grapple with
what’s acceptable and what’s not, It is clear that companies must continue to be heavily scrutinized for
their sales and marketing strategies.
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. Not all doctors are persuaded
ii. Choosing the best offers
iii. Who is responsible for the increase in promotions?
iv. Fighting the drug companies
v. An example of what doctors expect from drug companies
vi. Gifts include financial incentives
vii. Research shows that promotion works
viii. The high costs of research
ix. The positive side of drugs promotion
x. Who really pays for doctors’ free gifts?
Aslanovs_Lessons
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G
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CRAM FOR SUCCESS – QUESTION TYPE BASED READING PRACTICE TESTS
MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 8
Running on empty
A revolutionary new theory in sports physiology.
A. For almost a century, scientists have presumed, not unreasonably, that fatigue - or exhaustion in
athletes originates in the muscles. Precise explanations have varied but all have been based on the
‘limitations theory’. In other words, muscles tire because they hit a physical limit: they either run out
of fuel or oxygen or they drown in toxic by-products.
B. In the past few years, however, Timothy Noakes and Alan St Clair Gibson from the University of
Cape Town, South Africa, have examined this standard theory. The deeper they dig, the more
convinced they have become that physical fatigue simply isn't the same as a car running out of petrol.
Fatigue, they argue, is caused not by distress signals springing from overtaxed muscles, but is an
emotional response which begins in the brain. The essence of their new theory is that the brain, using a
mix of physiological, subconscious and conscious cues, paces the muscles to keep them well back from
the brink of exhaustion. When the brain decides its time to quit, it creates the distressing sensations we
interpret as unbearable muscle fatigue. This ‘central governor* theory remains controversial, but it
does explain many puzzling aspects of athletic performance.
C. A recent discovery that Noakes calls the ‘lactic acid paradox' made him start researching this area
seriously. Lactic acid is a by-product of exercise, and its accumulation is often cited as a cause of
fatigue. But when research subjects exercise in conditions simulating high altitude, they become
fatigued even though lactic acid levels remain low. Nor has the oxygen content of their blood fallen too
low for them to keep going. Obviously, Noakes deduced, something else was making them tire before
they hit either of these physiological limits.
D. Probing further, Noakes conducted an experiment with seven cyclists who had sensors taped to their
legs to measure the nerve impulses travelling through their muscles. It has long been known that during
exercise, the body never uses 100% of the available muscle fibres in a single contraction. The amount
used varies, but in endurance tasks such as this cycling test the body calls on about 30%.
E. Noakes reasoned that if the limitations theory was correct and fatigue was due to muscle fibres
hitting some limit, the number of fibres used for each pedal stroke should increase as the fibres tired
and the cyclist’s body attempted to compensate by recruiting an ever-larger proportion of the total. But
his team found exactly the opposite. As fatigue set in, the electrical activity in the cyclists' legs
declined - even during sprinting, when they were striving to cycle as fast as they could.
F. To Noakes, this was strong evidence that the old theory was wrong. ‘The cyclists may have felt
completely exhausted,’ he says, ‘but their bodies actually had considerable reserves that they could
theoretically tap by using a greater proportion of the resting fibres.’ This, he believes, is proof that the
brain is regulating the pace of the workout to hold the cyclists well back from the point of catastrophic
exhaustion.
G. More evidence comes from the fact that fatigued muscles don’t actually run out of anything critical.
Levels of glycogen, which is the muscles’ primary fuel, and ATP. the chemical they use for temporary
energy storage, decline with exercise but never bottom out. Even at the end of a marathon, ATP levels
are 80-90% of the resting norm, and glycogen levels never get to zero.
H. Further support for the central regulator comes from the fact that top athletes usually manage to go
their fastest at the end of a race, even though, theoretically, that's when their muscles should be closest
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to exhaustion. But Noakes believes the end spurt makes no sense if fatigue is caused by muscles
poisoning themselves with lactic acid as this would cause racers to slow down rather than enable them
to sprint for the finish line. In the new theory, the explanation is obvious. Knowing the end is near, the
brain slightly relaxes its vigil, allowing the athlete to tap some of the body’s carefully hoarded
reserves.
I. But the central governor theory does not mean that what's happening in the muscles is irrelevant. The
governor constantly monitors physiological signals from the muscles, along with other information, to
set the level of fatigue. A large number of signals are probably involved but, unlike the limitations
theory, the central governor theory suggests that these physiological factors are not the direct
determinants of fatigue, but simply information to take into account.
J. Conscious factors can also intervene. Noakes believes that the central regulator evaluates the
planned workout, and sets a pacing strategy accordingly. Experienced runners know that if they set out
on a 10-kilometre run. the first kilometre feels easier than the first kilometre of a 5-kilometre run, even
though there should be no difference. That, Noakes says, is because the central governor knows you
have farther to go in the longer run and has programmed itself to dole out fatigue symptoms
accordingly.
K. St Clair Gibson believes there is a good reason why our bodies arc designed to keep something
back. That way, there's always something left in the tank for an emergency. In ancient times, and still
today, life would be too dangerous if our bodies allowed us to become so tired that we couldn't move
quickly when faced with an unexpected need.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has eleven paragraphs A-K.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. Avoiding tiredness in athletes
ii. Puzzling evidence raises a question
iii. Traditional explanations
iv. Interpreting the findings
v. Developing muscle fibres
vi. A new hypothesis
vii. Description of a new test
viii. Surprising results in an endurance test
Aslanovs_Lessons
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
SUCCESSLC
CRAM FOR SUCCESS – QUESTION TYPE BASED READING PRACTICE TESTS
MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 9
Moles happy as homes go underground
A. The first anybody knew about Dutchman Frank Siegmunds and his family was when workmen
tramping through a field found a narrow steel chimney protruding through the grass. Closer inspection
revealed a chink of sky-light window among the thistles, and when amazed investigators moved down
the side of the hill they came across a pine door complete with leaded diamond glass and a brass
knocker set into an underground building. The Siegmunds had managed to live undetected for six years
outside the border town of Breda, in Holland. They are the latest in a clutch of individualistic
homemakers who have burrowed underground in search of tranquillity.
B. Most, falling foul of strict building regulations, have been forced to dismantle their individualistic
homes and return to more conventional lifestyles. But subterranean suburbia, Dutch-style, is about to
become respectable and chic. Seven luxury homes cosseted away inside a high earth-covered noise
embankment next to the main Tilburg city road recently went on the market for $296,500 each. The
foundations had yet to be dug, but customers queued up to buy the unusual part-submerged houses,
whose back wall consists of a grassy mound and whose front is a long glass gallery.
C. The Dutch are not the only would-be moles. Growing numbers of Europeans are burrowing below
ground to create houses, offices, discos and shopping malls. It is already proving a way of life in
extreme climates; in winter months in Montreal, Canada, for instance, citizens can escape the cold in
an underground complex complete with shops and even health clinics. In Tokyo builders are planning
a massive underground city to be begun in the next decade, and underground shopping malls are
already common in Japan, where 90 percent of the population is squeezed into 20 percent of the
landspace.
D. Building big commercial buildings underground can be a way to avoid disfiguring or threatening a
beautiful or “environmentally sensitive” landscape. Indeed many of the buildings which consume most
land -such as cinemas, supermarkets, theatres, warehouses or libraries -have no need to be on the
surface since they do not need windows.
E. There are big advantages, too, when it comes to private homes. A development of 194 houses which
would take up 14 hectares of land above ground would occupy 2.7 hectares below it, while the number
of roads would be halved. Under several metres of earth, noise is minimal and insulation is excellent.
“We get 40 to 50 enquiries a week,” says Peter Carpenter, secretary of the British Earth Sheltering
Association, which builds similar homes in Britain. "People see this as a way of building for the
future." An underground dweller himself, Carpenter has never paid a heating bill, thanks to solar
panels and natural insulation.
F. In Europe the obstacle has been conservative local authorities and developers who prefer to ensure
quick sales with conventional mass produced housing. But the Dutch development was greeted with
undisguised relief by South Limburg planners because of Holland's chronic shortage of land. It was the
Tilburg architect Jo Hurkmans who hit on the idea of making use of noise embankments on main
roads. His two- floored, four-bedroomed, two- bathroomed detached homes are now taking shape.
"They are not so much below the earth as in it," he says. "All the light will come through the glass
front, which runs from the second floor ceiling to the ground. Areas which do not need much natural
lighting are at the back. The living accommodation is to the front so nobody notices that the back is
dark."
G. In the US, where energy-efficient homes became popular after the oil crisis of 1973, 10,000
underground houses have been built. A terrace of five homes, Britain's first subterranean development,
is under way in Nottinghamshire. Italy's outstanding example of subterranean architecture is the
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Olivetti residential centre in Ivrea. Commissioned by Roberto Olivetti in 1969, it comprises 82 onebedroomed apartments and 12 maisonettes and forms a house/ hotel for Olivetti employees. It is built
into a hill and little can be seen from outside except a glass facade. Patnzia Vallecchi, a resident since
1992, says it is little different from living in a conventional apartment.
H. Not everyone adapts so well, and in Japan scientists at the Shimizu Corporation have developed
"space creation" systems which mix light, sounds, breezes and scents to stimulate people who spend
long periods below ground. Underground offices in Japan are being equipped with "virtual" windows
and mirrors, while underground departments in the University of Minnesota have periscopes to reflect
views and light.
I. But Frank Siegmund and his family love their hobbit lifestyle. Their home evolved when he dug a
cool room for his bakery business in a hill he had created. During a heatwave they took to sleeping
there. "We felt at peace and so close to nature," he says. "Gradually I began adding to the rooms. It
sounds strange but we are so close to the earth we draw strength from its vibrations. Our children love
it; not every child can boast of being watched through their playroom windows by rabbits.
Questions 1-8
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs A-I.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. A designer describes his houses
ii. Most people prefer conventional housing
iii. Simulating a natural environment
iv. How an underground family home developed
v. Demands on space and energy are reduced
vi. The plans for future homes
vii. Worldwide examples of underground living accommodation
viii. Some buildings do not require natural light
ix. Developing underground services around the world
x. Underground living improves health
xi. Homes sold before completion
xii. An underground home is discovered
Aslanovs_Lessons
Example: Paragraph A xii
1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
6. Paragraph G
7. Paragraph H
8. Paragraph I
SUCCESSLC
CRAM FOR SUCCESS – QUESTION TYPE BASED READING PRACTICE TESTS
MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS – PRACTICE TEST 10
The truth about lying
Over the years Richard Wiseman has tried to unravel the truth about deception - investigating the
signs that give away a liar.
A. In the 1970s, as part of a large-scale research programme exploring the area of Interspecies
communication, Dr Francine Patterson from Stanford University attempted to teach two lowland
gorillas called Michael and Koko a simplified version of Sign Language. According to Patterson, the
great apes were capable of holding meaningful conversations, and could even reflect upon profound
topics, such as love and death. During the project, their trainers believe they uncovered instances where
the two gorillas' linguistic skills seemed to provide reliable evidence of intentional deceit. In one
example, Koko broke a toy cat, and then signed to indicate that the breakage had been caused by one of
her trainers.
In another episode, Michael ripped a jacket belonging to a trainer and, when asked who was
responsible for the incident, signed ‘Koko’. When the trainer expressed some scepticism, Michael
appeared to change his mind, and indicated that Dr Patterson was actually responsible, before finally
confessing.
B. Other researchers have explored the development of deception in children. Some of the most
interesting experiments have involved asking youngsters not to take a peek at their favourite toys.
During these studies, a child is led into a laboratory and asked to face one of the walls. The
experimenter then explains that he is going to set up an elaborate toy a few feet behind them. After
setting up the toy, the experimenter says that he has to leave the laboratory, and asks the child not to
turn around and peek at the toy. The child is secretly filmed by hidden cameras for a few minutes, and
then the experimenter returns and asks them whether they peeked. Almost all three-year-olds do, and
then half of them lie about it to the experimenter. By the time the children have reached the age of five,
all of them peek and all of them lie. The results provide compelling evidence that lying starts to emerge
the moment we learn to speak.
C. So what are the tell-tale signs that give away a lie? In 1994, the psychologist Richard Wiseman
devised a large-scale experiment on a TV programme called Tomorrow's World. As part of the
experiment, viewers watched two interviews in which Wiseman asked a presenter in front of the
cameras to describe his favourite film. In one interview, the presenter picked Some Like It Hot and he
told the truth; in the other interview, he picked Gone with the Wind and lied. The viewers were then
invited to make a choice - to telephone in to say which film he was lying about. More than 30,000 calls
were received, but viewers were unable to tell the difference and the vote was a 50/50 split. In similar
experiments, the results have been remarkably consistent - when it comes to lie detection, people might
as well simply toss a coin. It doesn’t matter if you are male or female, young or old; very few people
are able to detect deception.
D. Why is this? Professor Charles Bond from the Texas Christian University has conducted surveys
into the sorts of behaviour people associate with lying. He has interviewed thousands of people from
more than 60 countries, asking them to describe how they set about telling whether someone is lying.
People’s answers are remarkably consistent. Almost everyone thinks liars tend to avert their gaze,
nervously wave their hands around and shift about in their seats. There is, however, one small problem.
Researchers have spent hour upon hour carefully comparing films of liars and truth-tellers. The results
are clear. Liars do not necessarily look away from you; they do not appear nervous and move their
hands around or shift about in their seats. People fail to detect lies because they are basing their
opinions on behaviours that are not actually associated with deception.
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E. So what are we missing? It is obvious that the more information you give away, the greater the
chances of some of it coming back to haunt you. As a result, liars tend to say less and provide fewer
details than truth-tellers. Looking back at the transcripts of the interviews with the presenter, his lie
about Gone with the Wind contained about 40 words, whereas the truth about Some Like It Hot was
nearly twice as long. People who lie also try psychologically to keep a distance from their falsehoods,
and so tend to include fewer references to themselves in their stories. In his entire interview about
Gone with the Wind, the presenter only once mentioned how the film made him feel, compared with
the several references to his feelings when he talked about Some Like It Hot.
F. The simple fact is that the real clues to deceit are in the words that people use, not the body
language. So do people become better lie detectors when they listen to a liar, or even just read a
transcript of their comments? The interviews with the presenter were also broadcast on radio and
published in a newspaper, and although the lie-detecting abilities of the television viewers were no
better than chance, the newspaper readers were correct 64% of the time, and the radio listeners scored
an impressive 73% accuracy rate.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has six paragraphs A-F.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of headings
i. Some of the things liars really do
ii. When do we begin to lie?
iii. How wrong is it to lie?
iv. Exposing some false beliefs
v. Which form of communication best exposes a lie?
vi. Do only humans lie?
vii. Dealing with known liars
viii. A public test of our ability to spot a lie
Aslanovs_Lessons
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
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ANSWER KEYS – MATCHING HEADINGS QUESTIONS
TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1. iii
2. vii
3. iv
4. ix
5. ii
6. i
7. vi
1. iv
2. xii
3. ii
4. x
5. i
6. ix
7. v
8. vii
1. vi
2. ix
3. iii
4. viii
5. i
6. iv
1. vi
2. x
3. iii
4. viii
5. i
6. iv
7. ix
1. v
2. vi
3. iii
4. vii
5. iv
6. ii
Aslanovs_Lessons
1. v
2. i
3. ix
4. viii
5. iii
6. vi
1. v
2. vi
3. iii
4. ix
5. i
6. vii
7. x
1. iii
2. vi
3. ii
4. vii
5. viii
6. iv
SUCCESSLC
1. xi
2. ix
3. viii
4. v
5. i
6. vii
7. iii
8. iv
1. vi
2. ii
3. viii
4. iv
5. i
6. v